Robert H. Michel Special Project Grants

The Dirksen Congressional Center announces the termination of the Robert H. Michel Special Project Grants effective June 1, 2013. The Center will concentrate its grant-making activities in an enhanced version of its long-standing Congressional Research Awards now renamed “Congressional Research Grants Sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center.” Please visit http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_grants_CRGs.htm for further information.

Previous Grant Awards

The Dirksen Congressional Center has the following Special Project
Grants:

2001 "The Macro-Politics of Congress," a conference co-sponsored by the University of Colorado, The Dirksen Congressional Center, and Yale University.

2001 Subvention for the publication of The American Congress:
The Building of Democracy, ed. Julian Zelizer (Boston
and New York: Houghton Miflin Co., 2004). The book features
40 essays that capture "the full drama, landmark legislation,
and most memorable personalities of Congress."

2001 MindUniversity won the third grant in November 2001 to
develop virtual field trips for high school students using
resources posted on The Center's Web sites and based on an
Internet organizer developed by MU (http://www.minduniversity.com/).

2004 Steve Frantzich, U.S. Naval Academy, "How a Bill Becomes
Law Interactive." This project will create an interactive "bill
becomes law" flow chart that can serve as a stand-alone activity
or as the basis of classroom instruction. Each stage of the
legislative process will be accompanied by a video clip example,
a textual description, a discussion of alternative methods
to accomplish that step, and a statistical summary (how many
bills are introduced, how many roll call votes per year,
etc.) The deliverables will include a PowerPoint presented
with video insertions, the content for textual descriptions,
and instructor's guide, and a plan to post the project results
on The Center's Web suite. The U.S. Naval Academy is providing
cost-sharing support.

2005 Stephanie Vance, AdVanced Consulting, "The Congressional
Hearing Toolkit." "The Congressional Hearing Toolkit" will
help students understand the role of the congressional hearing
in the policy process, i.e., how committees operate and influence
legislation, through an interactive model. The deliverables
will include written materials, video of committee hearings,
and two committee hearing simulation models for student use.
AdVAnced Consulting is providing cost-sharing support.

2006 John Wilkerson, University of Washington, "LegSim:Senate." This
project will create a companion curricular resources to LegSim:
House of Representatives. Both permit students in classes
of any size to organize and operate their own legislature. LegSim includes
a host of instructional resources such as assignments, grading
tools, and learning icons, and is customized by the instructor.
Because LegSim is remotely hosted, students participate
from any web browser at any time and the instructor has the
flexibility to decide whether activities, such as committee
meetings, debates, or votes, occur in the classroom or outside
of it. Click here to visit the LegSim website: www.legsim.org.

2007 Jeffrey L. Bernstein, Eastern Michigan University, “What Do Our Students See When They Look at Congress?” This project uses “think-aloud” methodology to explore ways in which we can improve instruction on Congress. In the think-aloud, students are presented with a series of articles or videos about a particular issue (in this case, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007) and about a particular legislative procedure (the filibuster). Students read source material and “think aloud” as they do so, enabling thoughts to be seen as they develop (rather than after they fully form, such as would be the case if a formal written paper is read). Bernstein’s research reveals the importance of understanding (1) the tension between majority rule and majority rights and (2) the essentially conflictual nature of legislative activity. When students have a low comfort level with these ideas, their ability to understand the work of the legislative branch suffers dramatically. See http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_expert_bernsteinlecture.htm for the project’s work product.

2009 FedNet, “TeachingCongress.net.” This project takes advantage of a unique, proprietary database consisting of all House and Senate floor proceedings since 1998 to produce a Web-based, interactive, multi-media resource for teaching about Congress. Conceived of as a glossary of commonly taught terms about Congress linked to digitized illustrations of those terms, TeachingCongress.net will provide a platform for the addition of lesson plans, expert commentary, and student activities. For an example related to Black History Month, visit http://www.fednet.net/tc/blackhistory.htm.

2009 American Judicature Society, “Screening Commissions for US District Judge Nominees: A Study of U.S. Senators and the Process of Choosing Federal Judges.” Funds will be used by AJS to establish a collaborative working group of scholars and researchers to design and oversee new research on senators’ use of screening commissions to recommend individuals for appointment to U.S. District Courts. As the only study of its kind since the Carter administration, it will provide an historic bridge between initiatives taken during that administration and current senatorial plans, allowing for better-informed study of the federal nominating process and senatorial practices to advance the selection of highly qualified judges.

2010 Scott A. Frisch and Sean Q. Kelly, California State University Channel Islands, “Pork: The Web Site.” Frisch and Kelly will create a multimedia website containing resources for students, teachers, researchers, the media, and the public aimed at increasing understanding of Congress and its power of the purse. The site will focus on congressional earmarks and the congressional appropriations process. This is a two-year commitment.

2010 Oxford University Press, pre-publication support for “Roll Call: A History of the United States Senate” by the late Neil MacNeil. As chief congressional correspondent for Time magazine, MacNeil had unique access to many of the major modern figures in the book—he was a good friend of Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson, for example—and much of his information is drawn from his own archived reporter’s notebooks, in addition to standard historical research. The grant will assist the press in completing the manuscript and supplying footnotes.

2011 Stephen Frantzich, U.S. Naval Academy, "'So the Congressman Climbed in Bed with the Farmer's Daughter . . . .': The Serious Consequences of Congress as a Target of Humorists." This exploratory research is designed to analyze humorous representations correlated with public knowledge and evaluation of Congress. Congressional representations seem like fertile ground for testing a number of important hypotheses relevant both to Congress and a broader understanding of the sources of public opinion toward other political institutions. The research will result in a teaching module posted on The Center's Web site.

2012 Scott A. Frisch and Sean Q. Kelly, California State University Channel Islands, Politics to the Extreme: American Political Institutions in the 21st Century. This grant will help fund a conference with the purpose to examine the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to the hyper-partisanship and increasing incivility that are the hallmarks of modern American politics.

2012 Angela Evans, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, The Reclamation of the U.S. Congress. This project has three primary goals: (1) to provide recommendations to Congress for ways to improve its governance and operations given the current congressional environment; (2) to create for Congress a compilation of authoritative resources covering congressional attempts at reorganization and their outcomes; and (3) to teach students how to be engaged in, and contribute to, congressional deliberations through objective analyses.

Congressional Timeline

The Congressional Timeline, developed and maintained by The Dirksen Center, arrays more than 900 of the nation's laws on a timeline beginning with the first Congress in 1789 and continuing to the present. A second timeline 'band' depicts major political events as context for Congress's law-making...More

73rd Congress: March 9, 1933 - June 18, 1934

A meeting of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. The first session of Congress, known as the "Hundred Days," took place before the regular seating and was called by President Roosevelt specifically to pass two acts. March 9, 1933, The Emergency Banking Act...More

74th Congress: January 3, 1935 - June 20, 1936

The Soil and Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to conserve soil, prevent erosion, and accomplish other minor goals. It was a piece of legislation passed in response to the Supreme Court's declaration....More

75th Congress: January 5, 1937 - June 16, 1938

In 1938 the Civil Aeronautics Act transferred federal responsibilities for non-military aviation from the Bureau of Air Commerce to a new, independent agency, the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The legislation also gave the authority the power to regulate airline fares and to determine...More

76th Congress: January 3, 1939 - January 3, 1941

On November 4, 1939, the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed, allowing for arms trade with belligerent nations on a cash and carry basis, thus in effect ending the arms embargo. ...More

77th Congress: January 3, 1941, to December 16, 1942

The Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, but six months before the U.S. entrance into the war in December 1941. It was called An Act Further to Promote the Defense of the United States...More

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Dirksen Center Special Projects

Dirksen Center Special Projects is a series of multi-media projects rich in Web-based resources on a variety of topics from civil rights to editorial cartoons. We have posted them where it makes sense within our Web suite. But as the suite has grown, we suspect it has become more difficult to find these special projects.

To make them stand out, we have created the Dirksen Center Special Projects web page to host links to all our special projects listed below.

The Dirksen Congressional Center is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization in Pekin, Illinois, that seeks to improve civic engagement by promoting a better understanding of Congress and its leaders through archival, research, and educational programs. The Center maintains its quality and independence through the gift support of individuals, corporations, and foundations who believe in its educational mission. The Center is named for Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896-1969). Dirksen served in the U.S. House from 1933-1948, the U.S. Senate from 1951-69, and as Minority Leader of the Senate from 1959 until 1969.